A new sheriff has cancelled an elementary school’s pricey video surveillance system in hopes of better allocating the Ore. County’s security resources.
Jackson County Sheriff Corey Falls will not renew his department’s contract with the designer of a surveillance system that was installed in an elementary school for $278,333 in 2013.
Falls says his decision was partly based on the belief that placing well-trained deputies in schools was a more effective way to maintain school security.
The surveillance system, NEXAR sos by Future Concepts LLC, put a camera and emergency button in each of the school’s classrooms and allowed police to tap into cameras, control all door locks and use the school’s intercom remotely. The system also featured a command center with 22 Toshiba HDTVs with five computer workstations, according to mailtribune.com.
Some of the system’s hardware pieces will still be used, but Falls says so much security in one school didn’t make sense. “We have around 20 schools that we’re responsible for in unincorporated Jackson County,” Falls says.
The annual service costs for the system totaled roughly $22,588. Falls expects to use the money the department saves to keep a trained deputy nearby all of his county’s schools.
